Server-side secured network communication sessions typically use periodic keep-alive signals from a client to ensure the communication session is active. Referring to FIG. 1, client 104 sends periodic keep-alive messages 106 to server 102 that informs the server 102 that the client 104 is active and that the session should be maintained. If no keep-alive message is received within a predefined period, such as 30 seconds as indicated in FIG. 1, a periodic expiry timer 108, compares the receipt time of the last keep-alive message against the timeout value of 30 seconds and if the last keep-alive message is older than the timeout value, the server 102 terminates the communication session. This method can have disadvantages such as when the network environment is healthy and stable, the period is shorter than necessary and bandwidth is unnecessarily wasted, and when the network environment deteriorates, network congestion and/or delays can cause keep-alive messages to be delayed and received after the network keep-alive timer times out and terminates the communication session.
Therefore, a means of providing keep-alive functionality that is more efficient when the network is healthy and more robust when the network becomes congested would be highly desirable.